When Things Explode
by arkasha1983
Summary: Late 1970s. When Arkady meets Illya for the first time, he's confused about his future, in hot waters with his powerful father - a Red Army General - and probably with the Party too. Alternating POV. A multi-chaptered, detailed recount of how the two men came to know, trust, love each other.
1. Chapter 1

Snow danced carelessly in the moonlight. Arkady wandered around the banquet room in a haze, almost dragging his dress shoes on the elaborate Persian carpet, sneaking around the myriad of sequin dresses, dark tuxedos, white fur scarves, champagne glasses, loud small talk. His glass was empty, once again. A bow tie hung lopsided at his neck, looking as intoxicated as he himself felt. He realized that the light, spilling from the crystal chandeliers like golden rain, burned in his eyes a lot brighter than it should have. He fixed them on the shining dark glass of the window instead, hypnotized by the weather outside. Snow fell to its own lazy beat, careless about the waltz going on in the room. Much like him, he concluded.

A bald man with a thick white moustache elbowed Arkady in the chest. The man turned around to offer his apologies, both eyes and possibly his eyeglass too growing to the size of a whiskey glass' bottom as he met Arkady's, lacrimating, still squinting in a grimace of pain and annoyment.

"Well, if it isn't our young Doctor in Law here!" The man stretched out his arm, squeezing a hand-shake out of Arkady. He kept on, "I hadn't seen you since you were this high!" he held his hand flat at waist-level, "And now, what a fine young man we have here. But it was only natural, considering _that_ father of yours." He paused for a second, a demanding, questioning smile across his wrinkly face. Arkady didn't feel like gathering the emotional energy to fake a polite grin, so the man continued, "Alexander, isn't it?"

"Arkady."

"Oh. Arkady Renko. Kyril's son. You must be about thirty right now, aren't you young man? Time does fly."

"Twenty-six."

"Got your whole life ahead of you. And a brilliant one for sure. The General told me great things about your academic career, successes and… accomplishments."

Strange, Arkady thought, considering that his father had hated his guts since he was a little boy of ten years old. _"Get him out of my sight, or else I'll kill the little shit!"_ he had yelled to a group of bystanders the day they had found his mother, bottom of the lake, stones in her pockets – the ones she had asked unwitting Arkady to bring home. She was lifeless, her face turned blue. But keeping up appearances – that was something Kyril just couldn't deny himself the pleasure of. Don't ask, don't tell, but if you're asked: just lie. This time, Arkady couldn't collect the sufficient concentration to articulate an answer.

"Anyway, so nice of him to throw this magnificent party. Nothing spells New Year's Eve like the Ritz Carlton. Midnight looking over the Red Square. Snow and champagne, Beluga caviar… the whole package."

"I guess so."

The man left him, finally walking back to a small group of people, confabulating with great animosity about something that could only have had to do with Cold War, or else women. They were policemen, KGB, militia; young and retired, old school and fresh muscle – the three categories re-united for once in the name of New Beginnings and Hard Drinks.

Arkady damned himself for ever deciding to take part in the masquerade. Then he remembered exactly why. After their latest argument, his father himself had advised him not to show up, so of course he just had to. _"There'll be nothing for you tonight, no one useful for you nor your future. You're too stubborn, no meeting nor contact could you ever do any good. Not even if Nikolai Podgorny himself showed up. Lock yourself in your room and think very long and hard about what we discussed."_

His father, General Kyril Renko, the so-called "Butcher", the unrepentant Stalinist, the man who cut off ears from his German victims to show off to his comrades during the Great Patriotic War – he wanted him to follow in his steps. He wanted Arkady to murder for the Soviet Union, and hang gold over his inflated chest to be celebrated for it, met with admiration and subjection. The mere fact his young son was still refusing to officially subscribe to the Communist Party was enough for the General's blood pressure to spike as high as Mount Elbrus. That, and other things.

Arkady kept making his way through the room, praying more to himself than to anybody else not to stumble into any other long-time family friend, apparently decorated enough not to feel compelled to offer any kind of introduction. His gait was unsteady, but the well-mannered crowd pushing and shoving all around helped him narrow his path, keeping him in balance; he bumped into one-hundred shoulders too many, without uttering a single _"Izvinite."_

He checked his wrist-watch. Eleven thirty. All evening, his father had been out of sight but, much to Arkady's disappointment, he had been right. Arkady had spent the evening walking around in impossible circles, eating nothing, casually reaching under tangles of elegantly-clothed arms for the Whiskey, Vodka, Champagne bottles. No significant encounter had been made either; he was bound to come back home with a couple fresh bruises, his two-weeks old Law Degree, still no idea what to do with his life. The idea of going fuck-all and opt for a career in the Police Force bored him out of his mind; on the other side of the rusty, rotten kopek, exacerbating his father's irritation seemed all the more intriguing.

He finally came to stand right in front of the window-pane, full-height, perfect view. The pinnacles of the Historical Museum still somehow shone, even in the darkness of that last wretched night of the year, golden stars at their very peaks; far behind, St. Basil looked like a benevolent dwarf, eccentric and excessive with its twirls, its cones, its colorful roundess. Snow at night and the cityscape appeared grainy – an old photograph, a childhood memory, a Mosfilm movie playing on TV.

"Not much of an appetite, have we?" A deep voice and its slightly sardonic tone shook Arkady clean of his thoughts. A man taller than he was had approached the window too; he too was staring straight out, to the _ploshed_ and the snow. "The vinaigrette was alright. Soup too. Caviar smelled funny – funnier, that is. You could have at least settled for pickles."

"Excuse me?"

Arkady had long removed his gaze from St. Basil, the lights, the red, the square, now totally focused on the stranger. Something about this man's lips, the way they had just slightly curved upwards, told Arkady he was aware of the perplexity he had provoked in his younger interlocutor; still, he didn't flinch and he surely didn't turn to face Arkady.

"I've watched you all evening. You checked your wrist-watch twelve times. Boring event, I know. But what did you expect really? Except of course for Major Nurikov, Lieutenant Baevsky and Mrs. Olga Kurikova to intrude in your personal life and offer their heart-felt congratulations. About your Law Degree, anyway. Good job."

"What?" Arkady's bafflement found itself at crossroads between exasperation and fascination, and then opted for the latter. "I'm sorry sir, do I know you?"

"Oh, excuse me. Illya Nickovitch Kuryakin, I'm with KGB." Illya finally turned to him and offered a wider smile. Hesitation, then Arkady's hand met his, and squeezed.

"Arkady R—"

"Of course."

"How?"

"Do you always talk in monosyllabic questions, young man?" The question sounded hostile, but its formulation somehow put Arkady at ease; Kuryakin was by far the nosiest chat he had had all evening. At the same time, he sounded familiar, like he had known him all his life. "I'm getting worried about making the wrong decision here", Illya added.

"Decision?" Arkady wondered if his fascination could still turn into exasperation at some point, "What do you care about how I talk and Law Degrees, Mr. Kuryakin sir?"

" _Agent_ Kuryakin." Illya replied; no lashes were beaten, and his tone was all the same paternal, almost affectionate – like he was correcting a child. He continued, "I didn't come here tonight for your father, just so you know. I'm looking for recruits. I've read your reports, Renko, I've studied you for months. Academic results and extra-curricular activities. An athletic sensation. But it's true, you have troubles opening up. You make _me_ seem talky."

"I prefer doing rather than talking about it."

"You spent five years of your young life absorbing abstractions."

"I had no choice."

"I know."

Arkady wondered if what Kuryakin was talking about was pure and simple KGB's knowledge, the merciless, cold harvesting of facts at his own expense, or perhaps an understanding running deeper – an emotional intuition, a common terrain of feeling between the two of them. This doubt embarrassed him, and he drew his gaze away from the man.

"I could use someone like you." Illya kept on, deliberately ignoring the vaguely blushing surprise painted on Arkady's face. "Steady nerves, hard worker – almost obsessive about what you do. Reserved, unrevealing. Good looking, always useful for a spy. You've learned enough, but it's time to act on it. What you need now is some polishing. Law, anyway. A brave choice in a country like this."

"Are you supposed to even say that?"

Illya didn't reply, but hid his smile in the champagne glass, downing its sparkling contents. Then, Arkady felt a heavy hand drop on his shoulder – had it been lighter, thinner, the touch would have sounded like a slap.

"Agent Kuryakin, what a surprise. I understand you've met my son. I hope he's not inconveniencing you."

It took Illya a split second to recognize the General; the same round blue eyes as Arkady, but set deeper in his face, and darting from under a thick pair of dark eyebrows, arched like eagle wings across the bottom of his forehead, heavily marked by time. Kyril Renko was a little shorter than his son but way more muscular – a wider chest, wider shoulders, perhaps a wider smile too, considering that Illya had never seen the young man give in to one. Illya registered a golden tooth.

"On the contrary, General Renko. By now, your son is probably fed up with all my talk."

"I don't think it's the case." Arkady intervened, and felt his father's hand grip his shoulder tighter. He could feel his whole body starting to tremble, each cell obscillating wildly around its axis, in anger; but on a macroscopic scale, he didn't move. Paralyzed by contact, he fixed his gaze on Illya. Illya stared back, scanning him, then quickly the General, then him again. He caught up.

"That would be a first!" the General exploded in harsh hilarity. "You see, my son can't stand any kind of conversation lasting for more than five minutes. Three and a half, to be precise."

"I don't blame him. Most conversations aren't worth a man's time and energy." Illya replied, the hint of a feigned smile on his face. Almost mocking, a privilege he had conceded to himself, given the notorious lack of humor of the General. "Especially not a man who's been top of his class for five consecutive years, isn't it right?"

"I'm afraid that doesn't count for much," Arkady replied, completely still. He wondered how many minutes were left of this torture, and he hoped for his eyes not to betray any emotion – any of the desperation the paternal vicinity caused him.

"Five years in the Moscow Diplomatic Cadet Corps, Agent Kuryakin. Five years and just today – nothing short of fifteen minutes before our grand gathering - the young man comes to me, saying he resigned to go on with his education two weeks ago. He got his degree and left. I call it desertion. I call it dishonor."

Nor Illya nor Arkady replied, although Illya's gaze to Arkady turned into a questioning one, and Arkady's finally into proud dismay. Kyril Renko abruptly broke physical contact with his son, fury inflating his neatly-adorned chest, "Now excuse me, I have to get ready for my speech. Gentlemen." He nodded briefly, coldly, to Illya's only – and left.

Arkady's eyes fell to the carpet, light and a billion other things bothered him. He considered leaving the spot, the room, Moscow, and he tried to turn on his heels.

Illya's hand intercepted Arkady's slowly spinning arm, and gripped him below the elbow. Shocked by his own lack of resistence, Arkady raised his head to hold the older man's gaze, or at least to try and read it. Concern, but a serene one – the expression of somebody who easily stayed in control, despite accidents, despite complications.

"That shouldn't be a problem." Illya said, as to resume their conversation, "I have already talked to my superiors about this. That's not desertion, it doesn't matter to the KGB. And even if it did, I would vouch for you. You're safe."

Arkady stopped. He swallowed his surprise, but not all of it. Had the KGB really lowered their standards like this? What was it with this man's determination to recruit him? Was his father in hot waters what the KGB, and was he just a way to get to him, to retaliate and blackmail? That would have never worked. In a couple of seconds, he thought them all. Was it all a joke?

"Agent, you don't even know me."

"I know enough."

"I'm not even with the Party."

"Who is, really?"

"If my father wanted it badly enough, I could disappear tonight."

"We're going to try our best not to let it happen."

"I'm not even sure I have anywhere to go", Arkady finally confessed. After tonight, the General would have never let him back home; if anything, there would have been guards on the mezzanine, waiting to escort him to Siberia.

"Anywhere _else_ , you mean." Illya shot back. Check-mate. During their brief conversation, he realized Arkady had tried his best to hide how severely in trouble he was. No house, no home. Impeding arrest, just a formal way for the General to officialize the act of disowning him. He was surprised that no one had broken through the front doors of the Ritz to arrest the young man; still, from a Russian perspective, was it really worth to spoil an evening of such glorious celebrations?

The Kremlin clock chimed, the Internationale broke through the sky in a dozen blinding fireworks, cutting through the black sky, the white snow still dancing, this time to a new melody. Triumphal, just a hint of melancholy. The whole room erupted from excited chat to enthusiastic clamor, shouts and laughter, bottles popping, glasses clinking, "Happy 1978, Comrades", and so on.

Arkady felt catatonic. Not for a second of that last bit of conversation, he had drawn his gaze from Illya. The fireworks, the music, the loudness of the hundreds of people around the room were not enough to distract him from the man's stubborn offers, from his very practical kindness.

A waiter, gloved hands, silent nods, polite smiles, came between them, pouring Champagne in their glasses. Illya smiled back at the younger man's confusion. Then, he stretched out his glasses-free hand to readjust Arkady's bowtie.

"Much better now. Happy New Year, Renko."


	2. Chapter 2

Illya sat at the kitchen table, cigarette in mouth, twisting a screwdriver deep in the cold metal of his car radio. "Repairing" it, uncovering the green hardware, dismantling its circuits, wire by wire, only to put them back together by morning, every night - it had become more of an insomnia-induced habit than a real necessity. Fifteen years of keeping his mechanical skills fresh, and he could have done it drunk, blindfolded, on his death-bed. In that case, he prayed for a violent death instead. One more year of this and he could have built his own little radio, technology advanced enough to pick up moon frequencies. Bet the Americans couldn't, he thought to himself, smoke in his eyes, a sly smile.

But the work had turned into something so mindless that his mind wandered off anyway. Perhaps that's what he liked, three in the morning, taking time for himself to think, getting his fingers black, smoking his soul away.

"Young Renko", as he called him, had been hiding out at this flat for two weeks. There were certain documents Illya had to sort out for Arkady, some shortcuts, some permissions to be granted. If all had worked out, Arkady could have officially enrolled at the CPK Institute in less than a week. Spy in the making – his own making, and the KGB's. If things went smoothly, there was no way Arkady could have been drafted. _"Military service compulsory up to the age of twenty-seven years of age, made exception for persons who continue full-postgraduate education." –_ the words kept slithering mischievously in the back of Illya's mind. This guy was twenty-six, he thought; one year short of freedom, and he had just walked out of a Military Academy.

This time, Illya prayed the General hadn't changed his mind about the agreements, located both of them, and sent a whole battalion to disintegrate every plan, every scheme; both their lives.

The thought felt like a sting somewhere around Illya's chest. Was _this_ the right thing to do? Arkady was promising, clever; still a bit naïve, no matter his distrustful, but agile in thought as much as on the field. But his qualities weren't the reason the KGB wanted him, and Illya knew. He felt somewhat guilty. He screwed the feeling away.

Illya remembered the night he had brought him home. New Year's Eve, not long after their little chat. Red lights, blue lights, white lights, they were streaking on Arkady's face from darkness to darkness – the neon celebrations of another year flashing past. The young man sitting beside him in his black Volga without saying a word, his gentle features hardened by preoccupation, softened by God knew how much alcohol on an empty stomach. Illya had turned from the wheel from time to time, to check for any reaction at all, " _This is the best thing for you to do right now_ ", he remembered telling him. _"I have nothing to lose",_ Arkady had replied, his eyes still filled with the desperation of doubt.

They had sneaked into the apartment, but not overly careful about making any noise. Illya's whole block had gone mad with fireworks, full-shouted toasts, guitars strummed drunkenly, folk music. They had bumped into an old woman on the mezzanine, broom in hand, handkerchief wrapping her grey hair, _"Your son, Mr. Kuryakin?", "Something like that, Natalia Andreevna." "Your brother, then?" "Goodnight, Happy New Year."_

Illya hadn't had the time to insist about taking the couch, because Arkady had collapsed on it. So he had just taken off Arkady's his shoes, put off his cigarette, and squeezed an extra pillow in the space between the young man's nape and the old blue velvet of his make-shift bed.

In the days that followed, Illya slowly realized that what had learned about his flat-mate, he couldn't have read on any KGB report on Earth. Arkady chain-smoked Belomorkanal, Illya's white T-shirts fit him one size larger, and some; he couldn't stand tea for breakfast, he ate eggs without bread. He was very keen about shaving. The first time they had shaved together, Arkady had cut himself just below his left cheekbone. He didn't talk much about himself, and when he did, not for longer than two minutes, pauses and unfinished sentences and all. Sometimes he didn't even nod, just stared straight into Illya's eyes; Illya could tell the _"Yes"_ es from " _No"_ s, but still, he was a spy. Arkady could solve a Rubik's cube in fifty-five seconds, but was an absolute lousy chess-player. Despite Illya's remarks about it not being strictly necessary, Arkady always answered the door with a gun in his hand, often barefoot. When bored, Arkady recited poetry – Anna Akhmatova, Fyodor Tyutchev. He watched Russian soccer on TV, on mute.

Arkady screamed in his sleep.

The first couple of times, Illya hadn't payed much attention to it. The confused, agitated sleep-moaning only served him as some kind of alarm bell from himself, from the way his inner talk inesorably tended to drift to trouble and melancholy. A distraction from a distraction, just a way to draw him back to his reality; his kitchen, his radio, his apartment, Moscow city lights outside the window. But day after day, night after night, ignoring Arkady's mid-REM cries had become harder and harder, unnatural.

Tonight, more than ever.

Illya put out his cigarette, set his instrument on the table, stood up and started walking to the bedroom; calm, resoluted. Once inside the room, he rushed in the darkness of it. He turned on the small lamp on the night table and sat on the bed. A feeble light washed over Arkady's face, thrashing around in his sleep, as slowly as he were underwater, drowning, sinking deeper and deeper. Lips ajar, broken words. His pale skin was beaded with sweat around the temples, down-right wet at the basin of his neck, where the drops had streamed and flown into each other. Illya grabbed him firmly by his shoulders, and shook him once, "Arkady!" he called – a shouted whisper, a gentle call to order.

"Alone… leave me…"

"Arkady!", shaking once again. Louder, stronger. Illya leaned closer to him.

Arkady opened his eyes wide, startled. He instinctively grabbed at the black wool over Illya's chest. Disoriented, unsure, scared. A nervous wreck, like the past three nights or so, Illya thought. He felt vaguely responsible.

"Arkady, it's just me. You're okay, everything's fine." Through the drenched cloth of Arkady's T-shirt, Illya noticed that the skin felt hot under his touch. That wasn't the usual cold sweat. He took the liberty of spreading a palm over Arkady's forehead, removing it slowly enough to wipe the sweat off of it. Arkady let go of Illya's sweater.

"You're burning up."

Arkady sat up on the bed. He tried to talk, but nothing came out. His mouth felt dry. Illya stood up, Arkady's eyes following him as the man walked to the small bedroom bathroom, turned on the tap, grabbed a glass from the cabinet, and filled it with water.

He sat down on the bed again, "Here, drink this." He brought the glass to Arkady's lips; hands around hands, small sips. Arkady was shaking. Illya held tighter, then set the glass back on the table.

"You'll catch pneumonia like this, then what's the KGB gonna say?", Illya attempted to down-play, but only half-joking, and not evening managing to force a convincing smile on his face. He helped Arkady to break free from the wet grip of his shirt. He slapped it off, crumpled it in a ball, and threw it on the floor. Once bared of his nightmare's keepsake, wet strands of hair falling over his eyes, Illya saw Arkady try to speak, his lips arched in the beginning of a syllable – a vocal, maybe? His first name? Illya went looking for a clean towel and one of his older sweaters. A cigarette too.

"I'm sorry", Arkady said once Illya's back was turned to him, "I dreamed of her again."

"Your mother."

Silence. Arkady must have thought that rubbing sweat off his nape was a valid contribution to conversation, Illya realized. He wasn't that good at it either; still, he had accused Young Renko of not being able to open up, and on their very first meeting.

"I was in the trenches, it was pouring down. Rain, bombs. I turned to the field again after catching my breath, and she was there. She was lying… on the grass in front of me. I couldn't see her face, it was turned from me. Her dress was the same. Her white dress. I tried to jump out of the ditch, run towards her but they pulled me back down. Every time. I tried and I tried and—"

"Arkady."

"I couldn't do anything."

"You should rest." Illya pulled a chair beside the bed, sat on it, lit up a cigarette for himself. Proper Russian bedside manners, some long-time American friend would have noticed. He watched Arkady pull on his old red braided sweater – it fit just alright, perhaps a little loose. It was like watching into a mirror, one reflecting images from almost twenty years ago.

"I'll stay here, I'll watch you. Also, there are no trenches you could possibly go to." Two truths, half a lie.

"I don't feel much like sleeping right now." A pause, just the sound of puffing and a feverish man's accelerated, heavy breathing, "You never told me about your mother."

Illya registered that there really was no way to play it safe with Arkady. The man dug deep, and he had a hunch for sentimentality, painful memories, and so on. That's probably why he looks so tormented, quietly restless, Illya thought.

"There's not much to tell about her." A lie, a pause. It took Arkady one single stare, the beat of eyelashes, to sense it. Illya rolled eyes under closed eyelids.

"Alright. Do you have all night?"

Something like the smallest smile Illya had ever seen in his life stretched Arkady's mouth, one angle only. The shortest too, his face dead-serious again, "You know, I don't talk about this with just anybody either. I would have never even mentioned her if these… dreams didn't keep happening. I just guess that given the situation, sincerity benefits the both of us."

"It's not like I would ever mention this to the KGB."

"I don't trust you that much, Mr. Kuryakin. I've been around your people all my life. It's just—"

"You feel like you have little choice."

"None."

"That makes very little sense. And still, you want to know about _my_ mother? Maybe _you_ want to report that to the KGB?" One, Arkady seemed to really want an exchange. Was he growing that lonely, did he feel isolated? Did it still hurt that much? Second, a joke - but a tremendously bitter one.

"I reckon they know about it all already."

Illya nodded, but his gaze stayed down, on the carpet. He pretended to focus on his cigarette. That was true. As a matter of fact, Illya often wondered whether his mother's fame hadn't granted him the place he now occupied; not entirely, but probably some of the steps upwards. Perhaps the very first ones. Once his father was gone, deported to the Gulag, she had been brave; she had been fierce, she had been smart – she had done what was necessary, all that was.

"I owe her a lot. I loved her dearly. I wasn't there when she died, and I couldn't have done anything. She was a beautiful woman, strong, wise – she always looked forward. She just always knew what to do."

"Sounds a lot like you."

No sarcasm. Illya raised his head and shook it, a weak smile, "I lose my temper way too easily. As a kid, I got into fights all the time. This scar," he rubbed two cigarette-squeezing fingers over the skin just beside his right eyebrow, "some kid at school came at me with a Swiss knife. I sent him to the hospital. Mama slapped me across the face, once – once was enough from her. I froze. _Want to end up like your father? Want to see your mother cry? Leave your mother all alone?_ I guess in the end, I did abandon her. I just couldn't accept the way she chose to deal with our situation – with our life as a family of two. Much too later, I understood."

Arkady had leaned his head backwards, against the antique rug hanging from the wall; and to the side, languid eyes turned to Illya – weakened by fever, softened by suppressed emotions. He couldn't remember the last time somebody had offered him such personal truths, heart opened like a book. He didn't say a word. He knew Illya understood. Arkady trusted him more than he would ever admit.

"We could have perhaps chosen better bedtime stories. Are you tired yet?"

"Far from it."

"You are shaking."

"It's nothing."

Illya traded chair for bed again. He spread his palm over Arkady's forehead once again; this time, he was met with a stiff tremble, a nervous vibration. Shivers.

"That's it. We're out of meds, I'm going to get you something before your brain fries."

Arkady retreated from his position against the wall, sitting closer to Illya. He istinctively grabbed at the black sweater again; the same patch of wool he had tortured, waking up from his nightmare. Illya raised his gaze from Arkady's hand to his face.

"Don't— don't leave me, Mr. Kuryakin."

"It's Illya. I told you about my mother. You can call me by my name."

Arkady felt each and every muscle in his arm give in, closing the space between his head and Illya's chest. The KGB, General Renko, the Army, the Party, American espionage, codes to decipher, buildings to break in, dead mothers, it all dissolved – blown away by Illya's sigh. He looked at the ceiling, mold, cracks, the cheap chandelier; one arm wrapped around the back of Arkady's neck, palm pulling back loose strands of hair, cupping his head again, this time not to check any temperature. Half a head-lock, Illya realized. He held him like this as close as he could, as if both the strength and the pride he took in the embrace could glue their wounds – shared, unshared, yet to share - shut.


	3. Chapter 3

When Arkady woke up, it was Monday morning. His bedroom – Illya's bedroom, which he had given up for the time being - was as cold as ever, perhaps colder than the night before, when fever burned under Arkady's skin. The chair beside the bed was empty; streaks of sunlight cut clean across the dark wood. Shining blisters of pills, a wet handkerchief, an empty glass and a bottle of Vodka cluttered the night table. A bag of synthetic ice had found its place inside a plastic bowl on the floor. Arkady didn't remember much. Blurred images of Illya hovering over him, squeezing the handkerchief dry in the bowl and then setting it lightly, with care, back on his forehead; Illya feeding him pills and water; Illya wiping away at his temples and cheekbones, chins and neck even, when the fever finally broke - Arkady could tell what had happened, but some other things struck him more as pieces of a crazed, desperate dream. Illya wiping away his mother's tears with a bare hand – a dream. Illya holding him tight to his chest – a dream too, for sure. But the sound of his heart, beating steady and loud, still echoed inside Arkady's head, as if his ear was still pressed on the wool of Illya's sweater.

When Illya came home, late in the afternoon, he found Arkady on the couch, smoking over a copy of Gogol's _Dead Souls_.

"Feeling better I see. Join me for a game of chess?"

No other words were shared between the two, except for Illya's "Checkmate", and Arkady's "I'll make some tea."

Tuesday was Illya's day off. He went out to buy bread and milk, newspapers, cigarettes for Arkady, which he proceeded to throw at him once home, in exchange for a smile. They had borscht for lunch, they talked about the weather; in the afternoon, Illya proposed they practiced some Russian Sambo, the Soviet martial art, self-defense with no weapons, mandatory for all spies and KGB.

Arkady was rusty; Illya, Sambo Champion in 1953, 1958 and 1964, stood over him after a "leg sweep", holding him by the wrist, left shin and knee pressing down Arkady's abdomen, "It's all about points of control, conditioning and destabilizing your opponent's equilibrium."

Down on the living room's rug, Arkady exhaled heavily, "They weren't this fast at the Academy."

"Maybe you focused too much on the Law, less on the whole Enforcement part?", Illya joked, smiling, and helped him up.

"Maybe."

They tried moves all day; scissors take-downs, calf crushes; grabbing and dodging, arms and legs tangled up on floor, twirling and twisting each other's limbs mid-air, breaking away and tangling up again, slowly – Illya most careful about not hurting Arkady, Arkady focusing on Illya's instructions reluctantly at first, but progressively more like his own life depended on them. Nevertheless, a few dusty Crime Science manuals fell down from a shaken bookcase; the coffee table was flipped over numerous times.

"You have it in you, Renko," Illya said, going down on the floor on his back, one hand grabbing at Arkady's loose T-shirt, the other pulling the younger man's arm to stretch it out straight, his right foot sliding out past the crook between Arkady's leg and hip. Arkady fell with him, "You just need to practice more."

Arkady turned his head to the side to look at Illya, chin against the man's right thigh, "Is your job on the line? Seems like you really want to impress the KGB."

As a response, Illya laid his other shin on the back of Arkady's neck, "I like my recruits in their top form, that's all." Illya squeezed Arkady's neck in a legs scissor, and twisted his body so that his left side now laid on the floor, Arkady's arm still stretched, immobilized. He kept on describing the exercise, "My knees are together; your shoulder and elbow joint are now aligned – that means, the opponent cannot move. Unless he desires a really painful fracture."

On Wednesday evening, Illya came home and rushed to the kitchen, where Arkady was peeling potatoes for dinner in front of the sink; Illya didn't even take the time to take off his shoes and overcoat – grains of snow fell from the black wool all around them, as Illya stood beside Arkady, showing him the documents, "I checked everything. All done and ready, you're in!"

While doing so, Illya had laid an icy hand over the back of Arkady's bare neck – he never wore gloves, nor Arkady turtlenecks. It wasn't for the cold Moscow weather touch that Arkady trembled, but he was the only one to realize it. Either way, Illya turned his firm but gentle hold into a slow shaking motion; a playful and paternal way to show his satisfaction. Arkady looked at him and tried to rearrange his facial muscles in what could have been a smile. Illya could feel a racing pulse under his thumb.

"We… you leave this Saturady", Illya said. He stared back at him for a moment, then headed back to the living room to remove coat and shoes. When Arkady tried to resume the peeling, he ended up cutting his index finger, blood dripping in small spots on his work; he then threw both peels and peeled into the trashcan and they dined with Vodka shots.

"This must be the first time we drink together, Renko." Arkady had yet to understand the deliberate motives by which Illya alternated name and surname while talking to him.

"You're forgetting the Ritz."

"We weren't alone. You weren't wearing my clothes."

The white liquid, the _little water_ , pooled in small glacial puddles of fire in their mouths, warm and burning down their throats. Arkady coughed. A long pause, an interrupted exchange of gazes.

"You weren't in charge of my life. I did not share yours. Your life."

Illya tilted his head to the side, in a movements that could either mean "Touché", or "You still have lots to discover about me." Then, he leaned over the small kitchen table, reaching with his lighter for the cigarette ready between Arkady's lips, Arkady sitting at the opposite head of the table.

"I knew about yours all along, but I just didn't care." Two millions of things implied, two skipped heart-beats, and Illya gracefully fell back in his chair, pouring more Vodka in both their glasses, and then raising his. The content of Arkady's reached the brim and spilled over his fingertips.

"To your future, Arkady. To all the new files the KGB will open on your career, and to the data I won't need to read from their archives to find out about. And to General Renko, who thought it better not to intervene, after all."

There was something comically tragic about what he had just said, Illya thought, but what he had said was nothing short of the truth. Danger loomed all over the fragile bound that necessity, affinity, human compassion and Party rules had weaved between them; something similar to exposed electrical wires connected them. A bundle of exposed wires, under the rain – lethal, desperate, unwise. Poorly thought, and executed even worse. As clever as putting out a fire with more alcohol, Illya thought, and exactly what they were doing. Pretending it was nothing when anything could go off at any moment.

Illya stepped in front of the TV, his long legs covering a re-run of the USSR playing versus Uruguay in the 1970 World Cup. The ball went back and forth, intercepted from time to time, none of the two teams prevailing on the other. Being the TV on mute, the legs of a man of 6 feet and half in front of it, no names on the players' T-shirts, the was no way for Arkady to tell who was doing what.

"Agent—Illya, do you mind?"

"I need your full attention."

Down from the sofa, finally looking up at him, Arkady could read concern on Illya's face – only a touch really, but enough for him to notice. Illya's face looked grey around the eyes, only enhancing their disarming clearness; he sat down next to him, and took the Rubik's cube from Arkady's hands, hanging in his lap, idly playing around with it.

"I guess you have it now."

Illya cleared his throat; by the sound of it, it must have been sore, "There are things I will never be able to tell you, Arkady, but you have to understand that it's just part of the job. Yours and mine. You—"

"I'm not sure I understand."

"You will know in time."

"Know what?"

"I'm not even supposed to tell you this. Please understand my position."

"I wish I did, but I don't. You're worrying me." Illya realized that Arkady was looking at him as if he had just told him he was intentioned to run away to Cuba with a Bolshoi ballerina. Like he had just gone crazy.

"Illya, are you okay?"

Illya didn't reply and checked his wrist-watch instead. His father's watch. 7:35 PM. For a second there, he wondered what old Kuryakin would have thought about the situation; he couldn't come up with anything giving him the inspiration and encouragement to go on with it.

"It's not about me, Arkady. It's about you." Illya grabbed Arkady by both his shoulders, Arkady's eyes still wide as plates, his lips ajar. "Whatever happens… just remember what I told you. Listen to me. Promise that you're listening to me, that you'll be alright."

Illya realized he would have pressed his lips against Arkady's forehead, but the time was up. Instinctively, he looked at the entrance door, past the TV, across the living room where the both of them had practiced Sambo, careless about neighbors, about old Natalia Andreevna shouting from the mezzanine, asking what the hell was going on in there. On Tuesday, complaints from the neighbors and relentless knocks on their door had provoked them to laugh like a couple of children, panting and catching their breaths from the tangle of arms and legs on the rugs. Now, there was no time to react at all. Illya counted down twenty seconds, and that was it.

"Militsya! Open up!" Knocks and boots kicking and the cold metal of multiple guns banging on the door. Illya let his hands slide off Arkady's shoulders, letting go. Arkady's face was frozen, fixed on his; Illya registered Arkady swallowing, his Adam's prominence going up and down. None of them went to the door to open. Arkady reached for his gun, hidden under the sofa, Illya walked to the middle of the room like a guilty man, ready to give himself up.

The door went down, and three men broke in; they were indeed Militsya, with their blue uniforms and ridiculous hats. Indeed, Arkady thought, his father had found him. Hate inflated his lungs – he realized how harder it was to breathe.

Two men went for Illya, the other one for Arkady. Arkady dodged the blows twice, and then went for it himself; the policeman sucked it up and hit him back – Arkady, struck blind across the face, found himself down on his side, almost in fetal position. His assigned policemen pulled him up, holding him by the sweater with both fists.

Illya's hoarse shout distracted Arkady, "Don't fucking hurt him!"

Arkady looked around the room; Illya was managing to keep the two officers at distance with kicks and side jabs, dodging almost all they threw at him – eventually, one managed to grab Illya's arm and twist it behind his back; the other man punched Illya across the cheekbone, the sound of it enough to hurt Arkady. Illya fell to his knees.

"Illya! You bastards!"

Arkady's Militsya-man smiled viciously, totally in control, and hit him again, but the other two men ignored Arkady's insult, "Enough with showing off, Kuryakin. You're coming with us."

As they were dragging Illya away, out of the apartment and down the stairs, Arkady turned back to his uniform-clothed opponent; he pushed him away with both his feet and the man almost flied across the room. Arkady seized the moment to search the rug for his gun; the distraction allowed the officer to stand up again and charge against him. As he was doing so, Arkady pulled the trigger – nothing came out. Blanks. He threw away the gun and dodged the officer in a crouch and roll movement; the other man crashed, causing Illya's bookcase to shake and empty most of its volumes on the floor.

Arkady ran across the mezzanine and rushed out of the apartment and down the stairs – he couldn't care less about a fist fight, Illya being his only care in the world. Illya, with his suspicious timing for little father-son talks; Illya, who had risked his life for Arkady's safety. Illya, who had sat by his feverish side and nursed him. But also Illya – who had given him blanks to protect himself. It didn't make sense.

Only streetlamps shed some light on the street; it all looked exactly like the night he had first start living there, Arkady realized. Exactly, give or take the moon – he didn't actually look up there, but Arkady could tell there was none to be seen.

No police cars were in sight either – had they left already? Had they come in unmarked vehicles, no sirens? In the distance, he saw a black car going straight ahead on the road, but moving strangely slow. Arkady started running for it. Was it Illya? Had Illya escaped them, after all? Were they all in it? He could read the plaque from where he was, and the car was Illya's for sure. More questions cluttered his head, piling up faster and faster with his run – until he froze, and it all came to a halt.

A fire blazed high on the road, wild flames tearing up the darkness of the evening sky, annihilating the weak, feeble comfort coming from the streetlamp's orange illumination. Somehow, Arkady seemed to register the harsh sound of the combustion much later than the glow itself, pieces of metal flying off all over the asphalt, gushes of ruined material and toxic smoke rising up.

He couldn't tell if he was screaming or not, but he knew he had fallen to his knees. Strong arms grabbed him by the elbows and shoulders, dragging him backwards – someone started fumbling with the sleeve of his sweater, someone else kept him still. Already anaesthetized, he felt a cold sting slide under the skin of his bare arm. Numbness pervaded every fiber of his body as he kept fixing his eyes on the fire – then the flames went black, and he lost consciousness.


	4. Chapter 4

Arkady's eyelids battled the ungenerous light of the room, desperate to put things back into focus. A black telephone, a typewriter, a radio, a blue visor cap with its red shining pin, wires and papers – they all trembled in a blur, on the dark wood of the desk in front of him. The face of Lenin stared back at him from the wall. Below the cheap framing, lopsided, fingers kept dancing, rhythmically and convulsed, against the hard buttons of a typewriter. The metallic screech of the platen, being pushed to the right with each new line of ink – it felt like torture in Arkady's ears, a nail being driven by a clumsy and sleep-deprived executioner through the side of his head. He instinctively brought one hand to his right temple, and the other hand, chained, followed its companion.

The man missing his blue visor cap whispered instructions and orders to the man whose fingertips inexorably tapped away at Arkady's mental sanity. A third man, much older, sat with his hands laying over a pile of documents, fingers intertwined, just in front of Arkady. He cleared his voice twice.

"Renko. Top half of your class, but never first. Your reports with the Cadet Corps are impressive. And still, you did decide to quit. I should ask why."

Arkady blinked harder, as if his determination could catalyze coming down from the numbness. He was starting to feel irritated, seeing smudged, seeing double. He imagined that the man in front of him had a glass eye. He broke eye contact and focused on the desk instead; what looked like a picture of his own face, sullen and black and white, stared back from under a paper clip.

The man exhaled, "I see. I know that about you. Uncooperative, has some trouble with authority." A precisely-engineered pause and a fake smile, "Did your merits save your ass, or was it your father every time?"

The insinuation caught Arkady's attention, a rush of blood to the head and the blur was almost cleared out. The metal around his wrists felt cold and hard; unpleasant, but nothing like the shivers running down his spine. The icy thrill of disgust, he thought to himself, how miserable.

"Just lock me up and get over with this."

The senior officer seemed entertained by the invitation. The man at the typewriter arched his lips in a sly smile. The whisperer had long found his place on a chair against the wall, and kept smoking behind his Pravda.

"I understand why you might be under a certain impression, given the… the way you were brought here. I'm sorry about those," the senior gestured at Arkady's handcuffs. "But you see – and I'm sure you understand - it's strictly procedure. Still, today is not your day, Young Renko."

Something about the smug expression printed on the officer's face lead Arkady to believe that the man wasn't sorry at all. Arkady himself couldn't care less, but his heart skipped a beat – not much for the slowly surprising unraveling of the situation as for the epithet the man had chosen to use. Between the senior lips the two words were nothing but a flat, simple assemblage of sounds. But that was also how Illya had called him for days on end during the weeks they had lived together; alternating it with his first name.

 _Young Renko, Arkady_.

For once in his life, growing up among men perpetually more experienced, more qualified, more demanding, older, harder, colder, stronger than him – being young was not a fault in his character anymore, just an affectionate adjective. Arkady realized Illya was probably unaware of the weight of his wording of choice. At times, the things he would say seemed to lift boulders from Arkady's chest.

"We just want to conclude our evaluation. Again, we're sorry about the peculiar way we decided to carry out the recruitment, but you see, our choices were very limited—"

"Where's Agent Kuryakin? What did you do to him?"

"That shouldn't bother you at the moment. First, we need to—"

"Is he dead?"

In a thrust of the back, Arkady had gathered the strenght to raise to his feet, his hands useless, caught in an iron lock between his legs. The room, or at least what he could see of it, started spinning. He realized he was near to shouting.

"IS HE?", he repeated louder, and a pair of strong arms with no name reached for him from behind and finally pushed him back to his creaking chair, with no great efforts.

Arkady scanned the faces in front of him, but nobody replied. The whisperer folded the newspaper with a resolved twist of the wrist, rose from his chair, whispered something to the typewriter man and sat down again, resuming the reading. The buttons kept going up and down in clicks and clanks. The old officer cleared his voice once more.

"You were very quick in your reaction." The usual scrutinizing pause, Arkady holding up the gaze. He noticed the glass eye was real glass, the artificial iris a little darker than the man's grey pigment. "I mean back at the apartment, when Comrade Lesnevich," the senior tilted his head to the side, indicating the Pravda officer, "and colleagues—when they came around to find you."

Arkady finally realized Lesnevich, the reader, was the one who had attacked him at Illya's apartment. He had no idea how to deal with that kind of information.

" _Found_ me?" His skepticism was all sarcasm, and his sarcasm skeptic, hesitating.

"You gave proof of remarkable combat abilities, and good adaptability. Comrade Lesnevich referred to us your ability to deal with the lack of firearm power, which you clearly had given for granted."

The blanks, Arkady thought. All that Illya had given him to protect himself. How he must had found it ridiculous to watch him answer the door with a gun in his hand, day after day, evening after evening when he came back home. Arkady felt something under his skin tingle and burn up with embarrassment. Illya knew about this, Illya knew everything. He clenched his fists in his lap, and stared at them.

"You must really care about Agent Kuryakin," the officer continued, "You must have really trusted him, no? It's only fair. He took care of things, he made sure everything ran smoothly, until the end."

Including taking a beating for nothing, if Illya knew from the beginning about the KGB's intention to break into their apartment to officialize the situation, and smuggle Arkady into their system. Did he even feel pain? Did he act out his pain, his preoccupation? Did it even matter now?

"I do not doubt that." Arkady simply said.

The man seemed to ignore him, too intent on analyzing the documents on his desk. He rubbed every single line of ink away from his sight with the index, and finally tapped the paper when he found what he was looking for.

"Good job, Smerlinski!", the man exclaimed, turning to the typewriter man, who promptly replied, "My pleasure and duty, Colonel Pribluda."

"Everythig is already in the files", Pribluda turned to Arkady again, "You endangered yourself and, in any potential situation, the innocents in your surroundings. When you got rid of Lesnevich, you just rushed out in the street. You didn't think about the consequences of leaving an attacker behind, on the loose."

"Agent Kuryakin was my first thought. I had to make sure he was alright."

"That shows great loyalty, probably good for the Army. But a spy works on his own. In time, you must learn not to let your emotions interfere with your thinking. You must operate as cold and neat as a knife."

Arkady didn't flinch. The knife the man talked about felt stuck in his abdomen, and this was not the time nor the place to pull it out; instead, he held it by the handle, and twisted.

"Was it everything just a test?"

"You passed."

"The explosion? The car?"

"You reacted poorly to that, yes. You lost control."

"Where is he?"

Pribluda smiled – an affected, quick-fading smirk reserved to fools who have no idea what awaits them and impatient children, "Welcome to the KGB, Renko."


	5. Chapter 5

January in Moscow was unforgiving. Illya looked around at the waves of dark furcoats, boots and _ushankas_ , flowing in a million opposite directions and colliding into one another with no apparent friction, gliding over the ice-clean tiles of the Domodevo International Airport. He exhaled, as to shake off a shiver out of both cold and anxiety, only half expecting to watch smoke coming out of his mouth. He turned around again to focus on the numbered wheel of the public phone.

"Hello, Operator number 5402 here. Please hold on, we're connecting you."

His fingers went impossibly pale as they tightened around the receiver. He wanted to avert his gaze again, up to the escalators, to the right and to the left; to the small crowd of a cafè, to the newspapers shop, to the information desk – but something froze his shoulders into place. Who did he expect to see, anyway? Nobody had followed him, Illya was sure of that. But a blow to the head, a black eye, a rough double-check with his KGB colleagues and a hard night could do things to a man. Separation could do things to a man.

A buzzing sound, a change of frequency, a thick silence, and his connection came to life.

"10:47 AM. You are two minutes late."

Illya imagined the voice coming out of a wide mouth full of strong teeth, one golden. Kyril Renko's eyebrows must have been corrugated enough to give him a headache.

"I was wondering if you'd complain about that. I apologize."

"I guess this will be a very short conversation anyway. Is he alright?"

"Yes."

All things considered, Illya thought. Arkady was now in somebody else's hands—the KGB's. Good hands, bad hands, only time could tell. Couldn't he judge simply by what he himself had become? Secretly, deep in his heart, Illya wished for something. Only then, he continued, "I'm glad you decided to follow through with our common plan."

"Not with a light heart. You must know I've never really tried my best with the boy, I never wanted to. I sent him away as soon as I could. But somehow, deep down, I suspect he has qualities your men will find valuable."

"He is not a _boy_ anymore. I'm sure he will prove himself."

There, he had said it. Two truths, one of the rare occasions Illya had spoken sincerely about somebody. Shamelessly, calm. A miracle for his line of work.

Renko Sr. ignored him, "I hope, with this—let's say, gesture, I hope that _they_ will acknowledge my only intention is to benefit the Party."

In his mind, Illya translated the general's hesitation. Trading your son for some career stability, or whatever Kyril had gotten into – it was one neat, wise move. A fair adjustment. A chess piece knocking over its equal adversary off the board. As practical as disgusting, Illya concluded.

"And I myself do not doubt that the Party will express their gratitude for your efforts." A lie, and not a white one. A lie of the necessary kind.

"Of course, you must think this was the best thing to do, for anyone."

"It was what it was. A compromise."

Illya realized that no matter how he decided to word it, no matter how he measured and modulated his thoughts, every minute was a betrayal to Arkady. This was nothing but another job, another crease to smooth out, as light as silk. Except it wasn't. The situation felt as heavy as a piece of bended iron; he had no fire for it to go soft, and the orders he had been given, his actions, fell down on the metal as relentless and exhausting as the ungraceful beat of an old hammer. What an exceptional example of Communist Worker he had become.

"Yes, the best for sure. Goodbye for now."

Before Illya could part his lips, Kyril Renko had hung up. Clearly not an easy man to talk to, and not one that would listen to reasons, in any way. It came to his mind that Arkady's strategy of conversation was quite the opposite: ignoring whole sentences, entire waves of words crashing against the casually stubborn wall of his silences. Illya imagined that to be some kind of survival trick, the nonchalantly unnerving attitude that Arkady had adopted to co-exist with his father. He also wondered how much and how many of Arkady's behavioral patterns - as _they_ had taught him long ago to call them – were caused by this peculiar paternal dynamic. Then another thought, impulsive and pulsating around his left temple – was he really alright? What was going through his head during those confused hours? At that very point and moment, one of Arkady's silences would have been enough for Illya to recollect himself, rearrange his head, find peace just for the mute space the younger man would have decided to put between his words.

As these thoughts crossed his head and heart, Illya checked his wrist-watch – the only memento of his own father's affection. He was right on time. The blackboard panels of the mechanical timetable rolled into place, spelling out city names in big white cubital letters. PARIS – BERLIN – HELSINKI – LONDON – NEW YORK. New York. Illya grabbed his suitcase and started walking to the gate. He joined the gliders, the ice-skaters on that swarming rink of Departures and Arrivals.

The Militsiya man who asked for Illya's passport was perplexed. Three times he counter-checked the blue eyes in front of him and the pair in the photograph. It was only when Illya smiled his brazen "See it now?" smile that the man finally let him through.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome aboard. The temperature is -7.8°C. Our flight will approximately last nine hours and twenty minutes. We will fly at an altitude of 13,500 feet, at a ground speed of 497 miles per hour. I hope you'll enjoy your flight."

Illya had managed to squeeze himself between the window seat and a fat businessman from Odessa. Shallow greens and dirty patches of snow, buildings like ants – they all stretched below his gaze, smaller and smaller. Then, the rippled blue concrete of the ocean. Illya turned his face away and tried to fall asleep despite his Ukrainian companion's snoring. Forced to lucidity, he started to take stock of the situation instead.

General Renko and him, they had known from the beginning what to make of Arkady's career. Of course, their motives couldn't be more different – both their stated, official excuses, and their hidden, personal reasons. Illya wasn't even sure how appropriate it was to effectuate a distinction between public and private, but there he was. After all, he wasn't even sure that his superiors hadn't done this on purpose. The similarities between Illya and Arkady's personal lives were obvious; their losses complementary – a mother and a father gone too quickly. Their stubborn nature, the pride, an inner defiance to most rules which could almost be labeled as suicidal. Their shared resilience, an inclination to cashing in the blows – even if Illya realized he still had some self-control problems in that area. The KGB knew how to have fun. To them, assigning him the case was nothing but a test – getting rid of a certain pest, and the task being sweetened by the comradely joy of betting on the outcome: two birds, one bullet fired from a Makarov.

This outcome, Illya himself couldn't weigh it up. He could feel his inner machinery spinning slowly, with great strain and friction. There were times it all came close to scaring him – like when he feared the General could indeed invert his route, suspicions turned to reality, and get them both, his son and him. _If you're afraid of wolves, don't go to the woods_ – the proverb said. But when the woods come to you because they're in trouble with the Party, meet them in the darkness with a shining knife, Illya added in his head. After all, a little paranoia was a fair price to pay for playing with the Butcher of Ukraine himself. He wondered whether this concern could have something to do with an excess of empathy towards Arkady.

This he knew for sure – that his heart felt heavy every time he thought about him. This, anyway, was a somewhat fresh ailment. He been assigned to study Arkady's file for months; the KGB had opened one on him the moment they had started to suspect Kyril Renko. The young man was nothing but another jigsaw piece in their pastiche of power, terror and control – Renko Sr. not only knew this, but had _wanted_ for this to happen – to bring his son into the equation, to escape a fate that seemed closer and closer, to make things right for himself. The KGB intentions met the General's naïve plan as deer horns meet deer horns moments before one of the two animals is wounded to death, or pushed off a cliff. Behind closed eyelids, Illya pictured blood on the snow.

Behind closed eyelids, Illya saw Arkady's round, questioning eyes.

How would he judge this? How would he judge _him_? Illya fantasized about shielding him from the pain of ever finding out about it all. What would he tell him? "My dearest boy, this is the life that was shoved down my throat – to lie, slither around in disguise, and fake it, and cover it up at all costs. Trick, fuck over, de-code and re-encode, get out clean, without a scratch or a blue eye at most. This is the life we chose for you, too. You will survive."

Now more than ever, his eyes open again and his gaze lost in the night sky, shining like dark ink outside the dirty pane, Illya felt in charge. He swore to the stratosphere above New York that he would have done anything in his power for Arkady to make it through. Unscathed and whole, safe and unbroken. He realized how inconvienent it was becoming for him to think about such intimate revolutions, but found himself unable to just give a damn.

Sure, he had orders to follow. Sure, his own life could be next on the line. But he hadn't lost sleep over somebody's existence since 1963. And he couldn't place in time the last time he had cared for anybody.

His mind was somewhere else while he finally walked outside the John F. Kennedy Airport at 1:30 in the morning, looking around for a cab. A familiar voice startled him.

"Peril? My god, I can't believe this!"

A muscular man wearing a long overcoat, a nice suit and a smug expression looked at him from the edge of the sidewalk, where he was leaning against a Chrysler Imperial or some other expensive American car. It took Illya about three seconds to recognize Napoleon Solo.

"Solo? Long time no see. I wasn't expecting you to be the American contact."

"You haven't seen me in what, fifteen years? And you are complaining already? I'm not sure I'll ever understand the Russian way."

Illya shook his head in disbelief, a small smile stretching his lips, "Shut up and drive."

"You bet I'll drive. Last time _you_ did, I almost drowned."

"It was not a car. Then, I fished you out of the water. Your memory is even shorter than I remember, Cowboy."

Time had been kind to Napoleon. His face looked slightly gaunter, sharp. Skin looked darker, deeper under his eyes – or perhaps it was just the moonlight. His cockiness was as annoying as ever.

"What happened to your face, anyway?", Napoleon asked as he drove along Route 678, "I mean around the…", he paused, to lift a hand from the wheel and gesture casually at his own cheekbone.

"It's called a bruise, Napoleon. Occupational hazard."

"Alright."

For the time being, Illya decided to keep the details to himself. Napoleon and him, they had three whole days to catch up, negotiating terms, bargaining this with that, trading secret information. Plus, his English was rusty enough to scratch against his tongue.

Illya looked out of the window for the millionth time of the day. New York wasn't as he remembered, and it kept sliding past in a blur of lights, neon and electric; distant windows, a couple satellites. He focused on the most distant star. In his head, he repeated like a slow mantra what he had promised to himself.


	6. Chapter 6

The sun burned pale, a halo behind and above Arkady's head. His lean body stood tall, cutting a black silhouette out of the summer sky, finding balance on the edge of the cliff. Illya looked up at him from one of the many large rocks of the coast below, leaning back on his elbows as if his resting surface was made of nothing else but velvet and silk; warm rays crossed the bare skin of his chest, just above his heart. How did they ever get to Odessa? Illya couldn't remember.

"Come on, look at me!", Arkady yelled.

Illya's smile widened, an attempt to outshine the sun. He brought a hand to his eyes, to shield them from the light, "Spakonye, spakonye, I'm looking!", he yelled back, his voice swollen with joyful pride.

Arkady seemed to reciprocate the smile, or so Illya imagined; from his position, he could only deduce details of the younger man's body by how the burning star decided to hit, stroke and caress him – nothing more than a play of brightness and shadows, like chiaroscuro on skin.

Arkady had his back to the water. Then, in a leap that left Illya blinded and defenseless against the naked face of the sky, Arkady went in the air. Illya watched his recruitee's knees bend in an elastic jolt of muscles, giving him enough push to arch his whole body backwards, mid-air; arms stretched out boldly and showing his chest to the sun. For a split second, with strength and elegance – then going down into the water.

My Icarus knows when to stop, Illya thought to himself.

In a graceful reverse somersault, Arkady crashed cleanly into the liquid darkness of the waves, green and blue, and divided them.

Instinctively, Illya stood up, ready to greet the other man's radiant face with his. He looked down into the water, and calculated five meters between the surface and himself. Pines danced in the light breeze; he could hear them all around, at his back. The waves below him kept flowing into one another, slow and relentless, intact; Arkady's face didn't come up.

Illya calculated five seconds and dove in.

The sea's embrace was uncompassionate; water felt as heavy around him as it looked. Once in, his head resurfacing again for oxygen, Illya pushed himself underwater. Nothing in sight; he was sure to be exactly where Arkady had fallen, but his eyes, itching and reddened by salt, seemed to contradict his intuition. He went down again, parting the depths of that blue and merciless crystal with his arms. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He looked around, chin stroked by light waves, and went down for a fifth time, only to re-emerge more desperate than ever; gasping, almost able to feel his heart pounding through the water, emitting its own vibration, its own little current.

Illya swam on.

"ARKADY! ARKADY!"

He hadn't called the name before, tormented by the fear nobody would reply. Now fear started to bloom. How much time had passed? He couldn't tell. How far was he from the coast? He couldn't see the rocks anymore, yet he didn't care. He had but one thought.

"ARKADY!"

Illya couldn't stand the silence, so he pushed himself down the surface once again. Deep below it, in the distance, the image of a pale body trembled and flickered against the dark blue, lighting up the sea bottom.

Arkady floated underwater, his arms still spread, his eyes closed – the pose of a martyr, an icon of sacred and broken beauty. Illya rushed to him, praying to God or whoever that his breathlessness wouldn't betray him. He reached for Arkady, holding his head in his hands, horrified by the sight of the younger man's lips; full, ajar, cyanotic. He let go of him with abrupt tenderness, aided by underwater gravity, and swimming around Arkady as to face the man's shoulders, he wrapped an arm across his chest. A thrust of his hips, and Illya pulled the both of them out of the water.

Arkady's chest felt soft under his touch; he felt as smooth and hard as stone. And cold too. With this last thought, immediately contaminated by preoccupation, Illya tightened the grip around the side of Arkady's ribcage – he realized that his fingers almost fit the somehow deep spaces between the man's ribs.

The way he was holding him didn't allow Illya to look at the state of Arkady's face – he wasn't sure he could or wanted to bear it. Trying to keep afloat with only one arm's work, he just bent forward to whisper wet, agitated words in Arkady's right ear, "I got you. I got you. We'll be fine."

Waves met their bodies from all directions; Illya felt exhausted.

"I won't let you go. Trust me. You have to trust me."

Then, unexpected as a slap in the face, a bigger wave crashed into them. Over and against their bodies, they both went down. Illya didn't have the time to catch his breath, swallow some air into his burning lungs, but his grip around Arkady's was firm. Until it wasn't, water coming between them, Arkady's slipping away. Illya struggled and thrashed his arms about in the water like a blind man; skin against skin, he found him again. With both arms now, he held Arkady – elbows locked around armpits.

Arkady's forehead fell against his shoulder. Illya looked up, the surface more and more distant. They just kept going down. Downwards and downwards, he wouldn't let go. Illya held tighter, chest trembling, shaking and pouding against Arkady's – mute. Darkness took over. He bared his teeth in a scream.

The telephone made all the noise for him. Startled awake by the insolent ringing, Illya straightened an arm out of the bed and grabbed the receiver.

"Da?", Illya tried, suffocating a yawn.

"Peril, you're not in Moscow anymore. I've been waiting for you downstairs for fifteen minutes, breakfast is getting cold." Napoleon sounded slightly entertained.

"I'm coming, Cowboy. American eggs just don't appeal to me, that's all."

He got up, washed up, got dressed. He ignored his face in the mirror. Illya was sure some part of the reflection would have still looked bruised and blue. Most accurate, he thought to himself.

The breakfast room of the Hilton Hotel, Times Square, New York, looked busy and weird at 8:00 sharp in the morning. Small groups of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen chatted politely over juice and sausages, coffee and milk, jam and bread. Illya couldn't understand the shape of the furniture nor its bright colors, matching and punching each other from the walls to the carpets, the armchairs and the tables. The Americans, from what he had heard, called it "fab", "funky", "bangin'", "bitchin'", "blazin'" and so on. But then, you couldn't really trust the Americans.

Napoleon sat by the window sipping his coffee, holding a newspaper in front of him with his other hand. Illya adjusted in the turquoise velvet of the chair in front of him. He didn't bother with looking at the cityscape; he wasn't even sure he would have caught any trace of sky in his gaze, not even by mistake – New York being a noisy pack of iron and glass sardines, the sardines being skyscrapers.

"Sorry to wake you up like this." Napoleon said, acknowledging Illya's presence.

Illya didn't reply. A waitress approached their table, "Anything I could bring you, sir?"

"Coffee would be just fine, thank you." Illya replied with a polite smile, a cigarette in his mouth, ready to be lit. She nodded and left.

Napoleon folded the newspaper, setting it down. He looked at Illya, one eyebrow raised, the eye below questioning, "You're smoking these days? I don't remember you ever doing that."

"I have—how do you say… picked up the habit."

"From who?"

"It calms me."

No sky was in sight, but it had started to snow. The faces of the skyscrapers outside the window seemed even darker and gloomier, behind the whirling blur of ice flakes. Illya imagined yellow taxies chasing dollars and airport appointments down the street, being the only source of color in town. A cup of steaming coffee was lightly set on the table.

"You better drink that. You'll need much more than calming." To top off statement, without any other hesitation, Napoleon slid an envelope across the table. The resolute movement caused a bouquet of forget-me-nots to shake in the crystal vase set on the cloth, and a seaquake in Illya's coffee cup. "You guessed it, Peril, I'm in a hurry."

Illya scanned his American colleagues's face and then the envelope; Napoleon's left palm laid on the brown paper, fingers tapping on it.

"Is this part of the deal?"

Napoleon nodded slowly, "Codes for names, as we agreed. Just tell me whether the data is totally bullshit or not, and I'll reveal who the bull is."

"How do I know if you're not bluffing?"

"Personally I have no interest to. At this point, both sides," Napoleon gestured quickly with his index, pointing first at Illya then at his own chest, "know they have informants in their ranks. Moles, infiltrators, whatever. You're just dying to know who that is this time, and what he told us. Granted, none of us will cry over spilled milk, whatever that milk is anyway."

"So, your men just want me to de-code this supposed leaked material?" Illya reached for the envelope, spreading his hand wide over it. Napoleon retracted his tapping fingers.

"Exactly."

"What about the informant?"

"It'll be a fair exchange. I'll tell you who that is once I know what that is."

"Great." Illya leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. He was aware of his coffee going cold. He was aware of the frown starting to build up, muscle over muscle, all over this face. "This is a double loss for us, and you're expecting me to collaborate? That's just genius. Get rid of a Russian and gain information. Congratulate your superiors on my behalf."

"Look, Illya, the man was no use to us anyway. He stopped giving us anything weeks ago. This is very old information. It was subtracted from him, that's why we can't figure it out. I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

"Who will handle him?"

"Your man, your rules."

Illya shook his head and turned it away from Napoleon's nonchalant detachment. The skyscrapers looked like giant, black Egyptian obelisks.

"You're not looking at it the right way," Napoleon insisted, a sly smile on his lips, "that connection is finished for us in. It's over. Nothing else will ever slip from that crack."

"Oh, thank you very much for that. I feel better now."

In the end, Illya had given in to Napoleon's smooth and sophisticated persuasion. In the end, he had reminded himself, he was in New York to follow orders. He had taken the envelope with him, shaken hands with his old American friend, gone down in the street and called for a taxi.

He had walked around Central Park for hours, and pretended to be in Gorky Park instead. Snow covered everything, and his boots sank softly in the white mantle. He had sat down on a bench, just looking at people passing by. He had pretended not to be on his own instead. Girls rushed past, with their colorful woolen hats and their giggling and their goofy mittens. Men walked on resolutely, in silence. Young couples took their time, arms tucked around each other. A tall guy with light brown hair flowing in the freezing wind had almost stopped to wave at him, mistaking him for somebody else; Illya almost had fallen for it, and smiled bitterly at his own delusion.

He had checked his wrist-watched: it told him 12:00 AM. 7:00 AM in Moscow. He had imagined Arkady getting up, fumbling with the buttons of his uniform.

He had taken shelter from cold and hunger in a diner, steak and potatoes and a beer. He had walked around some more, hoping New York could grow on him. A man bumped on him in the street, looking for a fight, "LOOK WHERE YOU'RE GOING BUDDY!", "Pick somebody your own size", he had replied, walking on.

He had found his way back to the Hotel at 5:30 PM.

Both hands on the desk, he finally looked down at the envelope. He sat down, and proceeded to open it.

Inside there were letters and numbers. Cyrillic and Arabic – no wonder Napoleon and his guys couldn't make anything out. Weren't CIA agents trained to learn at least four fluent languages? Illya asked himself. Ridiculous, but probably the proof the documents came from a fellow compatriot. Someone involved with missiles and launching dates; aerial bombs, anti-tanks rockets and artillery, Illya went on reading, easily interpreting the code. Co-ordinates of the military bases and weapons storages: latitudes and altitudes. Acronyms and figures aligned in lines and lines of a deadly alphabet.

An impressive load of information, made exception for the fact most dates were three, four, five years too late. Illya suspected most of the numbers to be absolutely blown up, and co-ordinates to fall somewhere way out in the Pacific Ocean. Translated to Russian, or better, to English, the files amounted to nothing. He wanted to let out a liberating laugh.

Still, before the situation had degenerated to this point, the informant Napoleon and him had been talking about – he had been collaborating for the Americans. Napoleon would have never admitted what this mysterious Russian had revealed to them, but he had let something slip, and that was the fact nothing conclusive had come out of the man's confessions for weeks. The scene of the crime was still fresh. There was no way to save this man.

The telephone rang.

"Where the hell were you? I tried all afternoon." Napoleon sounded exasperated.

"Spakonye, Napoleon. Meet me in the lobby in ten minutes."

This time, Illya was the one waiting, drink in hand. He felt relatively in control and bourbon tasted okay. Legs crossed, one hand spread on the edge of the sofa, he set the empty glass on the coffee table in front of him when Napoleon arrived.

"Where were we?"

"No more slips under cracks, or whatever you said."

"Alright. Where are we now?"

"I don't want to waste anybody's time here. I've had enough occasions to do so in the past, but I don't hate you that much, Cowboy." Illya's turn to exercise his sly smile techniques. "Those codes don't mean absolutely nothing. Missiles that have been tested already, weapons the US knows the USSR has had for the longest time. Locations pin-pointed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This man knows better than just getting robbed of real information. He set you up on this one."

"I fucking knew it" Napoleon snapped, mirroring Illya's pose on the opposite couch, almost biting at his knuckles.

"Your turn now."

Solo recomposed himself; legs uncrossed, smoothing out the fabric of his suit pants at quadriceps height, then proceeding to rest both his elbows on his knees, fingers entwined, against his lips.

"He introduced himself as the Butcher. The Butcher of Ukraine or something. Quite flamboyant, if you ask me."

Illya stared at Napoleon's dead in the eye, unable to react. Unwilling.

"Are you okay?"

"Renko."


End file.
